We hardly slept last night. Poor Warthog woke up six times and vomited. He would sit up quickly, put on his shoes, unzip the tent, and launch out. A couple of times he had barely made it out before he started heaving. I felt bad for him. After his first trip outside of the tent, I reinflated his sleeping pad that was now flat on the ground and moved over so he could lay on mine. Mine will still hold some air, while his deflates in about an hour. I figured he would need a little extra comfort during this rough night.
It was difficult to get moving in the morning. Especially considering his last episode was just before dawn. Warthog was curled up under the covers. The only motivation he had to get moving was to break down camp. We were set up a little too close to the state park, but it had been late when we found the clearing and we had just wanted to be done for the day. I prepped a spot for Warthog to sit and started to break everything down. He will need to take a zero and regain strength. Our plan was to walk back to the state park and figure out a place to stay. Wonder Woman and Snow Monkey said they’d take the day off with us.
I situated our packs so Warthog could carry as light as possible and we walked the almost mile back to the park to start our research. We landed on a Holiday Inn and Express about fifteen minutes outside of the park. Now we just needed to get a ride there. When we pulled up the Uber app, there had been a driver available but he quickly disappeared and we didn’t see another pop up. We waited for a good hour or more, still nothing. During that time we were talking to a local about driving for Uber. He had been interested in shuttling people and had questions about how Uber works. During that conversation we offered to pay him $25 to give us a ride. He said his car was too full of stuff to fit us. So we continued to hope an Uber would become available.
We didn’t know, but as we sat, the local guy was cleaning out the backseat of his truck to be able to shuttle us. During that time we saw Kirby walking down the street! We were all surprised to see him because we thought he was two days behind us. He had taken some time off to celebrate his birthday and was working on catching up. After he had been there for a while, the local guy came up and said he’d cleared things and could take us. We asked if he had room for five, but he only had room for us four (Snow Monkey, Wonder Woman, Warthog, and I). I needed to get Warthog into air conditioning and let him relax, so we had go. I half expected him to offer to bring Kirby after us, but to my knowledge he didn’t. I don’t blame him… when we originally broached the subject, it had just been the four of us. I felt incredibly bad for leaving Kirby at the park. But again, Warthog had to get to the hotel room.
After we checked in, Warthog dove into bed to take a nap. He was still feeling ill. While he was sleeping, I checked into our insurance to be prepared for what a trip to Urgent Care might cost. A week ago I had found an engorged tick on his arm. It healed quickly, but it had been bruised from the bite. We were all a little bit worried the illness was related to his tick bite and thought it was better to be safe than sorry.
While he was sleeping, we threw in a load of laundry. Afterwards, Warthog showered and headed to the Urgent Care. He wasn’t there for more than an hour. The doctor said it was just the flu but still prescribed a two dose antibiotic just in case because of the bite. Warthog came back to the room and I went out to Walmart to resupply and pick up his meds.
While I was at the store I started to feel sick. I was worried I was coming down with the same thing, but then realized I hadn’t eaten all day. Once I had some food in me, the stomach cramps started to dissipate.
We spent the rest of the evening crashed in the room. Most of it Warthog slept through. He had an entire night of sleep to catch up on. Poor thing. Tomorrow we hope to hit the trail early and get in our eighteen miles that we had planned on for today. I hope all strength is renewed by then. More importantly, I hope none of us become victim to this same flu virus. We would fall like dominoes.
-ansel